When the short film industry reached a point where it couldn't keep up or compete with Hollywood, film makers started making abstract short films. This style became the avant-garde theatre movement. The auter's believed that they were ahead of the crowd, makes sense considering avant-garde means ahead of the crowd in french, and they claimed their style was edgy and experimental.
The avante garde films were relatively budget, as the auter's didn't have the money to fund huge blockbusters. This is the main reason they were shorter than the feature films Hollywood were distrubuting.
One of the best pieces of avant-garde work was produced by Maya Deren in 1943, called 'Meshes of the Afternoon'. The film follows a circular narrative, there are many scenarios and topics, but always focuses on a singular woman. There is a very eery feel from the moment the film starts, its very dark, and there is no identification of the woman - just shadows.
A grim reaper, or atleast a similar looking figure, departs after picking up a flower that had been dropped, and the woman decides to run after him/it but finds herself back in the same house she began at. We then realise that the narrative is definately a circular narrative. We cannot identify wether she is actually dreaming or if it is real, especially when it seems she is having an outer body experience watching herself in the house.
The editing is sometimes discontinuous, and indicates an element of paranoia or crazyness to the film, the camera movements are extremely smooth however the action is often jumpy.
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